Part II of our conversation with MIT professor and author Noam Chomsky on the global economic crisis, healthcare, the media, US foreign policy, the expanding wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, resistance to American empire, and more.

"As far as policy is concerned, unless [Obama] is under a lot of pressure from activist sectors, he’s not going to go beyond what he’s presented himself as in actual policy statements or cabinet...

National demonstrations are scheduled in more than fifty cities across the country tomorrow to protest the government’s handling of the economic crisis. The demonstrations are organized by the recently launched group A New Way Forward. They are calling on the government to take three main actions on the country’s banks: nationalize, reorganize and decentralize. [includes rush transcript]

We take a look at how one North Carolina town is trying to become more self-sufficient by moving toward being able to feed, fuel and finance itself. The town of Pittsboro houses the nation’s largest biodiesel cooperative, a food co-op, a farmers’ market and, most recently, its own currency, the Pittsboro Plenty. Pittsboro is one of a number of communities across the country printing their own money in an attempt to support local...

As we broadcast from Raleigh, we look at how the economic crisis has impacted the Carolinas with Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and a writer for the blog "Facing South." South Carolina has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11 percent, just ahead of North Carolina. [includes rush transcript]

Florida has been hit particularly hard by the recession. It’s facing its worst unemployment rate since 1976, with nearly one in ten people out of work, and it has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country. Florida has also been described as one of the birthplaces of the financial crisis. We speak with University of South Florida Professor Gary Mormino, who describes the state’s economy as a giant Ponzi scheme. He’s...

For some analysis on the G20 summit and the financial crisis, we speak to a leading thinker on the global economy. David Harvey is a Marxist geographer and distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of several books, including The Limits to Capital and A Brief History of Neoliberalism. [includes rush transcript]

President Obama is in London today ahead of the G20 summit, where world leaders are gathering to discuss the global economic crisis. Tens of thousands of protesters from around the world are gathering in London to demonstrate against the G20 talks and call for economic justice and environmental accountability. Several large demonstrations directed at the failed banking and financial sectors are expected today, April 1st, which some protest...

As the nation’s economic and housing crisis worsens, homelessness is also on the rise, and an increasing number of people are setting up roving encampments or shanty towns that are popularly known as tent cities. Seattle’s newest tent city is called Nickelsville. The encampment is made up of over 100 fuchsia tents and is named to protest Mayor Greg Nickels’s policies toward the homeless. [includes rush transcript]

In a new article in Rolling Stone Magazine, journalist Matt Tabbi takes an in-depth look at the story behind AIG. "The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état," writes Taibbi. "They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected...

We speak with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is attempting to block President Obama’s nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs employee. "Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history," Sanders said....